Weighing the Galactic dark matter halo: a lower mass limit from the fastest halo star known

TL;DR

This study uses the full phase-space data of the fastest known halo star to establish a lower limit on the Milky Way's dark matter halo mass, challenging previous estimates and confirming the importance of complete kinematic information.

Contribution

It provides the first NLTE analysis of a halo BHB star and demonstrates how full phase-space data can set a lower bound on the Galactic halo mass.

Findings

The star J1539+0239 is the fastest halo star known, with a velocity of 694 km/s.

The lower limit on the halo mass is estimated at 1.7 x 10^12 solar masses.

Previous estimates may underestimate the halo mass due to incomplete data.

Abstract

The mass of the Galactic dark matter halo is under vivid discussion. A recent study by Xue et al. (2008, ApJ, 684, 1143) revised the Galactic halo mass downward by a factor of ~2 relative to previous work, based on the line-of-sight velocity distribution of ~2400 blue horizontal-branch (BHB) halo stars. The observations were interpreted in a statistical approach using cosmological galaxy formation simulations, as only four of the 6D phase-space coordinates were determined. Here we concentrate on a close investigation of the stars with highest negative radial velocity from that sample. For one star, SDSSJ153935.67+023909.8 (J1539+0239 for short), we succeed in measuring a significant proper motion, i.e. full phase-space information is obtained. We confirm the star to be a Population II BHB star from an independent quantitative analysis of the SDSS spectrum - providing the first NLTE study of any halo BHB star - and reconstruct its 3D trajectory in the Galactic potential. J1539+0239 turns out as the fastest halo star known to date, with a Galactic rest-frame velocity of 694$^{+300}_{-221}$ km/s (full uncertainty range from Monte Carlo error propagation) at its current position. The extreme kinematics of the star allows a significant lower limit to be put on the halo mass in order to keep it bound, of M_halo$\ge1.7_{-1.1}^{+2.3}\times10^{12}$ Msun. We conclude that the Xue et al. results tend to underestimate the true halo mass as their most likely mass value is consistent with our analysis only at a level of 4%. However, our result confirms other studies that make use of the full phase-space information.